Please Don’t Call Me a Food Nazi–I Just Want My Kids to Eat Well at School!!

Lob­by­ing for health­ier school food may sound like a no-brainer. After all, who could pos­si­bly object to improv­ing the qual­ity of the food being served to our kids? But with that said, the idea isn’t always very well received. In fact, par­ents, teach­ers and school admin­is­tra­tors who pro­pose swap­ping double-fudge brown­ies for apple slices are often met with resis­tance or some­times even become targets.

Yes, that’s right: The term “Food Nazi” is often tossed about in ref­er­ence to us more nutrition-minded par­ents. Proof in point: A recent arti­cle in Philadel­phia mag­a­zine, enti­tled, Food Nazis Invade First Gradeby Vicki Glem­bocki, which describes the parental uproar—and inten­tional break­ing of the rules—after birth­day cup­cakes are banned at a South Jer­sey ele­men­tary school.

A num­ber of my mom friends say they’ve expe­ri­enced the back­lash. “I’ve been accused of being overly restric­tive, uptight, even elit­ist (appar­ently, fruit is a sta­tus sym­bol these days!), says Sally Kuzem­chak, a reg­is­tered dieti­cian and fel­low blog­ger who pro­posed a “fruit-only” snack pol­icy to par­ents of the kids on her 7-year-old’s soc­cer team. Then there’s “Mrs. C” (whose real name is being with­held to pro­tect her from being attacked by a mob of angry moms), pub­licly labeled a “heli­copter par­ent” at her then 3-year-old’s preschool after she grum­bled about a school gar­den­ing project that involved fill­ing flower pots with crushed Oreos and gummy worms.

Blog­ger Bet­tina Elias Siegel of The Lunch Tray agrees that “parental push back, espe­cially when it comes to birth­day treats, is a real issue.” In her home state of Texas, the gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­ture actu­ally passed a “safe cup­cake amend­ment” (a.k.a. Lauren’s Law) to pro­tect the right of par­ents to bring in sweets on their kids’ birth­days. “I per­son­ally know one par­ent who was vil­i­fied at her children’s school when she dared ques­tion the birth­day treat prac­tice,” she explains.

Like­wise, in a recent piece titled “Is the ‘Obe­sity Lobby’ Win­ning?”on Grist.com, writer Tom Lask­away touches on “the ease with which terms like ‘nanny state,’ ‘food police,’ and ‘snob­bery’ get thrown around in even the politest com­pany when food restric­tions get discussed.”

OK, I think you get the pic­ture. But it all makes me won­der: What’s the real issue here? Why does the propo­si­tion of chang­ing the way we feed our kids tend to inspire a vis­ceral reac­tion? Or is it really the notion of deny­ing kids of some treats that causes some par­ents to get riled up?

I’ve thought about it at length, and here’s what I’ve come up with: It’s per­sonal. What you eat (or feed your kids) is as indi­vid­ual as reli­gion, pol­i­tics and the deci­sion to cir­cum­cise. I really don’t think par­ents would have the same reac­tion if we were talk­ing about, say, switch­ing from chemical-based to “green” clean­ing prod­ucts at school. There is some­thing about the sub­ject of food that makes some peo­ple go bananas.

Some par­ents also feel that attempts to con­trol what can and can’t be eaten on school grounds impinge on their per­sonal free­doms. In a FoxNewsRadio.comstory about a cup­cake crack­down at one Gree­ley, Colo., school , an incensed mom is quoted as saying:

They’re dic­tat­ing what I can send with my child for lunch—what I can give them for a treat at a school party. I don’t believe that’s right. It’s my child. I should be able to feed them what­ever I want. They’re not rais­ing my child. They’re not pay­ing for their ortho­don­tic bills. They’re not tuck­ing them in at night telling them they love them. But yet they’re telling me what I can and can’t feed my child?

She also refers to the school offi­cials who enacted the ban as Food Nazis. Sigh.

Other peo­ple have the atti­tude of “let kids be kids”—which means allow­ing them to have their cake and eat it, too. I sus­pect this view­point is often asso­ci­ated with a person’s own child­hood food mem­o­ries. After all, many of us think back fondly on the joy of run­ning for the Good Humor truck, blow­ing out the can­dles on a birth­day cake, or shar­ing a bag of Chee­tos with our best friend. We want our kids to expe­ri­ence the same thrill. And there’s only so long that they’ll be able to indulge before they inevitably start wor­ry­ing about belly bulges and cellulite.

In her Real Mom Nutri­tion blog, Sally K. dis­cusses how pro­vid­ing chil­dren with sweets and other yum­mi­ness is the way some par­ents show their love. And they, in turn, love watch­ing their child’s face light up when they see a plate of pink frosted princess cup­cakes or bite into a Rice Krispie treat. As Vicki Glombecki con­cluded in her Philly mag “Food Nazi” story, “Send­ing in birth­day treats [to school]…made me feel like a good mom.” When school offi­cials, teach­ers or other par­ents pro­pose strip­ping them of this parental right, they, quite under­stand­ably, can get pissed.

I, too, have great mem­o­ries of my mother mak­ing Toll House cook­ies and trips to Friendly’s. She def­i­nitely showed us love through food, and I love her for it. But as a par­ent, I’m try­ing to rede­fine things so I’m show­ing love with fresh, more “nat­ural” food. Yes, I feel happy when my kids shout with glee when they’re told we’re hav­ing ice cream sand­wiches. But what gives me even greater plea­sure is see­ing them get excited about a piece of per­fectly ripe mango, hav­ing them ask for corn on the cob and water­melon, or hear­ing them say, “Yummy!” after tast­ing a bite of salmon. Now that makes me feel like a good mom.

For­tu­nately, I’ve never been called a Food Nazi—at least not to my face. I do get the occa­sional jab for my dis­taste of food dyes and other arti­fi­cial stuff. And I feel like some peo­ple worry that my kids are being sub­jected to a child­hood with­out donuts and Dori­tos (but it sim­ply isn’t true—they do get their fix, just usu­ally not from me!). We eat sweets and pack­aged snacks all the time; how­ever, when I’m the one dol­ing them out, they are usu­ally on the more whole­some side. But please don’t con­demn me for it. I just am doing what I feel is best for my brood–just as you’re doing what you feel is best for yours.

Why do you think is behind the “healthy” feed­ing back­lash? Have you ever been crit­i­cized for pre­fer­ring “nat­ural” foods or hes­i­tated to speak up about junk food in school out of fear?

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About School Bites

I cre­ated this blog to raise aware­ness and start a dia­logue about the var­i­ous issues involved in school food. By writ­ing about it, I hope to pro­vide par­ents and edu­ca­tors with ideas and inspi­ra­tion for mak­ing healthy changes in their own schools. Since healthy eat­ing habits start at home, I also address com­mon feed­ing chal­lenges faced by parents.

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